On 2018-02-05 00:54, Jon Perryman wrote:
C is NOT portable. Portable languages must be usable (acceptable) on a platform's as it exists. zArch became a portable platform after hardware changes added String (and other) instructions. These instructions were not added for MVS because we lived without them for several years.
This is the best example of "motivated reasoning" that I have seen in this lengthy thread. The world is full of packages written in C (and many other languages) that can be run on numerous different platforms; in most cases, all that is required is running a build for that platform. Conversely, you cannot run HLASM on a computer that does not support z/Architecture or its ancestors, unless you have a legal or illegal product that emulates said hardware architecture to run it on.
Calling z/Architecture a "portable platform" is inverting the whole concept of portability (actually, "cross platform applications"). You port the software to the hardware.
As I've said before, I'm not here to defend C; it has some serious defects and, FWIW, Dave Cole's piece was not specific to C. HLASM has its place, and I continue to do the majority of my work in it (because of the nature of my work), but its place isn't "everywhere". I'm just a little taken aback by the complete dismissal of the advantages of compiled languages in general, and I'm a bit puzzled by the vitriol.
-- Regards, Gord Tomlin Action Software International (a division of Mazda Computer Corporation) Tel: (905) 470-7113, Fax: (905) 470-6507 Support: https://actionsoftware.com/support/
